Peter Ling’sDoctor
Whonarrative ‘The Mind
Robber’ (1968) is a very clear example of metafiction. On one level, it
reflects on theDoctor Whoviewer’s
generally experiencing mystery. The Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie,
and Zoe arrive in a world (although not in the TARDIS) which is
eventually revealed to be a Land of Fiction and venture through
labyrinths of language populated by characters from literary fiction. As
David Darlington and Alistair McGown note, the second episode of ‘The
Mind Robber’, the first set within the Land of Fiction, ‘is required to
provide all the introduction and exploration which’ script editor
‘Derrick Sherwin…did not provide’ in his first episode (2000: 29), and,
since then, Alan Barnes (2009) has provided a fairly extensive
examination of this wood of allusion, which ultimately provides the main
protagonists and the television viewer with anchorage as to where the
narrative is set. Furthermore, the true nature of the Master of the Land
of Fiction is at first veiled from both characters and from the
television viewer as reader, with shots presented from behind a
mysterious figure in the darkly lit control room, but his identity is
finally revealed. Ultimately, the Doctor battles the Master of this land
for narrative control and order is re-established. However, on another
level, ‘The Mind Robber’ playfully dramatises the notion that readers
and viewers are capable of becoming lost in fictional narratives (to the
extent of thinking about them all the time), an idea not commented on by
Barnes (2009), or, before him, by Trevor Wayne (undated), or by David J.
Howe and Stephen James Walker (1998).

Much work
has been done on the ways in which the cinema spectator can become
immersed in films. These ideas draw partly on Sigmund Freud’s discussion
of ‘the pleasure principle’ and ‘the reality principle’ which,
unsurprisingly, is expressed in relation to a heterosexual model of
sexuality (that which the child desires and that which is suppressed:
for instance, in the case of the male child, the mother, substituted, in
reality, with another member of the opposite sex). For Freud, dreams
symbolise both the conscious, and unconscious, desires of ‘the pleasure
principle’. For Christian Metz, attending the cinema is born out of
desire (1975: 7). As Sandy Flitterman-Lewis notes, French post-Freudians
Jean Laplanche and J-B Pontalis argued that we organise our unconscious
ideas into imaginary scenarios in which our deepest desires are
dramatised and Flitterman-Lewis explains that when we watch a film it is
as though we are ‘dreaming it’, with ‘our desires’ working ‘in tandem
with those who generated the film’ (1992: 211).

Flitterman-Lewis
(1992: 211) proceeds to describe how ‘the pleasure principle’ is
produced in the cinema by what Jean-Louis Baudry (1976) calls ‘the
cinematic apparatus’ consisting of ‘the technical base’ (film equipment
such as the projector), the conditions of the cinema, the film itself,
and the ‘mental machinery of spectatorship…that constitutes the viewer
as a desiring subject’. For example, psychoanalytic theory explains that
the conditions of watching films at the cinema, not only means that
films are watched with a gaze, but also are akin to dreaming: the
darkened room cloaking distracting elements (Flitterman-Lewis 1992:
212); the enormous screen, distanced from the viewer spatially,
providing the sense that the screen image is beyond our reach and
therefore lending the film an aura of fascination (Flitterman-Lewis
1992: 218); and the physical stasis of the viewer, therefore heightening
visual perception (Flitterman-Lewis 1992: 212).

This
experience of our dreaming a film and experiencing our deepest desires
is strengthened by the connection between Jacques Lacan’s theories and
film theory. Flitterman-Lewis, for example, draws on Lacan’s theories of
the ‘Mirror Stage’ of a person’s life (from roughly the age of six to
eighteen months old) stating that ‘Just as the infant sees in the mirror
an ideal image of itself, the film viewer sees on the movie screen
larger-than-life, idealised characters with whom s/he is encouraged to
identify’ (1992: 214). According to Flitterman-Lewis, ‘Film theory has
been quick to appreciate the correspondence between the infant in front
of the “mirror” and the spectator in front of the screen, both being
fascinated by and identifying with an imaged ideal that is viewed from a
distance’ (1992: 214). She writes, ‘The film viewer’s fictional
participation in the unfolding of events is made possible by’ the ‘first
experience of the subject; that early moment…when the…infant begins to
distinguish objects as different’ (1992: 214). Furthermore, Lacan termed
the next stage in a human being’s life as ‘the imaginary order’ which
continued into adulthood where people seek further images of themselves
in others in order to define themselves, and can become absorbed in
these further images.

The filmtextsthemselves
are important in absorbing spectators. As a rule, films work to hide
their construction. The majority of films are made according to the
rules of, what has become known as, ‘the continuity system’. Rules of
the continuity system include consistency inmise-en-scčne(for
example, settings, weather and lighting); that camera shots follow what
is known as the 180 degree rule where the camera should stay on one side
of the action to ensure consistent left-right spatial relations between
characters from shot to shot; and that characters are presented leaving
one scene before arriving in another as opposed to there being jump-cuts
between scenes. Conversely though, there are those films such as the
Soviet montage films of the 1920s which contrast with ‘the continuity
system’ by emphasising their construction. The most notable Soviet
montage director was Sergei Eisenstein, who wrote about his theory of
montage in relation to theatre in a 1923 essay ‘The Montage of
Attractions’. In films such asStrike(1925),
Eisenstein aimed to shock the viewer through ‘intellectual montage’ -
the juxtaposition of colliding images - where Shot A + an often
metaphoric Shot B = a new meaning. Eisenstein did this so that the
viewer would not become absorbed in his films but instead would think
about the political and social issues being presented. Meanwhile,
another Soviet montage director Dziga Vertov emphasised the construction
of his filmMan with a
Movie Camera(1929) by
presenting the cameraman and his audience within the film, and by using
devices such as the freeze-frame to show how film could be manipulated.
But these films are the exception as opposed to the rule of narrative
cinema which usually works to hide its construction. Furthermore, as
Flitterman-Lewis notes, in the majority of films a combination of
techniques are used to makes the viewer feel as though he or she is
actuallyinon
the action. For example, there is a ‘“suturing” (sewing together) of
looks’. This is achieved through shot/reverse-shots which give the
impression that the cinema viewer is ‘looking over the shoulder or from
the position of one character’; and there are point of view shots where
the cinema viewer’s look indeed ‘becomes that of a particular character’
(1992: 223).

Flitterman-Lewis,
however, argues that the experience of watching television is rather
different to that of watching a film. For example, the characteristic
mode of watching television is with the glance as opposed to with the
gaze of cinema; television is a smaller object which does not demand the
same type of attention; television is viewed in the home meaning that
viewers can get up and return, do other things while watching, and talk
to other people; and the lights are more likely to be on meaning that
there is not the same hypnotic fascination that accompanies viewing a
film at the cinema (Flitterman Lewis 1992: 217).

Flitterman-Lewis
(1992) also examines this issue of whether viewers become immersed in
programmes in relation to the ways in which television programmes are
organised. For example, Flitterman-Lewis points out that ‘The stories
commercial television tells us are constantly interrupted by
advertisements, station identifications and promos, and the like’ (1992:
217). Flitterman-Lewis’s point certainly suggests that the viewer can
experience television in a different way from film, which also depends
on the type of television being watched (commercial or non-commercial
television).

However,
it is easy to see how viewers may become absorbed - and lost - in
television fictions, since critics, like John Corner (1993), Graeme
Burton (2000), Bernadette Caseyet
al(2002), and Jonathan
Bignell (2003) have written about how television narratives are a
principal source of pleasure. Claims, by, for example, John Ellis (1982)
that the conditions of watching television do not involve the same
involvement as watching films at the cinema are being negated. Even in
the days of television when the programmeDoctor
Who, examined here, was first broadcast, there were criticisms that
television cut off social interaction. People can indeed leave the
central family living room of social interaction to watch the television
set in seclusion and in the dark. The television set can be hooked up to
a video recorder, contained in the bedroom, even though the screen is
not nearly as large as that in the cinema. As Bignell notes, in Britain
‘more than half of all households have more than one TV set’ (2002:
133), lending support to this notion. The darkness of the room also
literally blurs the boundary between the home and the events taking
place within the television frame.

For
television is experienced differently by different people. Jeremy
Tunstall (1983: 135) distinguishes between primary, secondary and
tertiary involvement with media, ranging from one paying only momentary
attention to the television set, being engaged in another activity
(‘tertiary’); to paying attention some of the time, listening to the
sound, while pre-occupied (‘secondary’); to giving the television one’s
full attention (‘primary’). Television is experienced differently by
different people.

This idea
of the viewer possibly becoming lost in fiction will now be focused on
with specific reference to the ‘classic’ series ofDoctor
Who. Television’s ongoing form of the series can partly explain
viewers becoming absorbed - and even lost - in fiction. Although true of
many viewers, Tunstall’s (1983) notion of ‘primary involvement’ in
watching television, is especially true of ‘fan’ viewings and programmes
such asDoctor Who.
From beginning to end, the ‘classic’ series ofDoctor
Whowas a series of
serials, which helped generate loyal viewers over time who, through
familiarity, became attached to the series. They made a conscious
selection of a specific programme that was viewed faithfully from week
to week, and were engaged in, what Bob Mullan calls, ‘ritualised
viewing’ (1997: 65). In this way, television form was important to the
idea of viewers becoming absorbed in fiction in a way not seen in the
majority of cases in film, composed largely of single narratives. But
Flitterman-Lewis neglects to mention this. Indeed, fans typically watchDoctor
Whonarratives
repeatedly, and do not all step back from the programme and read it
analytically.Doctor Whowas,
furthermore, broadcast on non-commercial television (BBC1) where there
were not breaks in the midst of episodes, indicating how Flitterman-Lewis’
points relating to television viewing practices are generalised and how
viewerscanbecome
absorbed in television narratives. Furthermore, Roland Barthes’ (2000)
notion of the hermeneutic code functioned inDoctor
Whowhere characters and
the television viewer gradually unravelled a mystery, and where the
television form of the series of serials could also cause viewers to
become lost in fiction. Here, episode endings are just certain moments
of dramatic intensity, and are, as John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado
note, ‘suspended enigmas’ (1983: xi). Therefore, between episodes of the
programme, viewers could have become lost in thoughts of ‘what will
happen next’.

Genres
like science fiction and fantasy are described as ‘escapist’ (see, for
example, Holland 2000: 113) since they take the reader of a book or
viewer of a film or television programme from their world into a changed
or new one. Key theorist Darko Suvin (1979), for example, applied G.
Spenser Brown’s quote fromLaws
of Form(1969) to science
fiction, that ‘a distinction is drawn by arranging a boundary with
separate sides’ (1979: 32). This quote ties in neatly with Suvin’s
argument that science fiction relies on cognitive estrangement, where a
‘novum’ is presented, ‘an important difference’ that may be a new
scientific invention, characters, or an entire scene, ‘superadded to or
infused into the author’s empirically “known”…world…; or, more usefully’
seen as ‘an important deviation from the author’s norm of reality’
(1979: 36-7). But, as Suvin noted, ‘the validation of the novelty by
scientifically methodical cognition into which the reader is inexorably
led is thesufficientcondition
for SF’ as ‘it is not sufficient to say that the narrative world of SF
is “at least somewhat different from our own”…for magic too is an
organised body of knowledge, and a fairy tale is often more at variance
with the author’s empirical world than SF’ (1979: 36-7).Suvin,
however, argued that science fiction does not have to rely on hard
science, but only on the extrapolation of scientific ideas which may
derive from, for example, anthropology, sociology or linguistics rather
than physics (1979: 38). It is best to seescience
fiction and fantasy as defined by repeated sets of conventions, as
critics like Brian Stableford (1987) and Carl Freedman (2000) have done,
who have argued that science fiction need only give the appearance of
plausible science, therefore arguing against the use of the term
‘science fantasy’.

It is the
notion of Realism, whereDoctor
Whonarratives treat
characters and situations within the programme’s own set of rules, which
can cause viewers to become lost in the programme. This fits in with
Catherine Johnson’s (2005) discussion of the issue of verisimilitude in
her book on telefantasy, where she drew on the work of theorist Steve
Neale (2000) who, writing about film, argues that genre invokes a system
of expectations in viewers about the type of film they are watching.
According to Johnson, Neale argued for two types of verisimilitude,
generic verisimilitude and socio-cultural verisimilitude:

Generic
verisimilitude corresponds to what is accepted as plausible or likely
within the expectations of a particular genre. For example, it is
accepted for a character to burst into song in a musical, or for an
alien to land on Earth in a science-fiction film, while these events
would seem implausible in a gangster film. Generic verisimilitude is
constructed through the relationship between producer, text and
viewer, and between texts that employ conventions of that
genre…Socio-cultural verisimilitude does not equate directly with
truth or reality, but with broader culturally constructed and
generally accepted notions of what is believed to be true…These genres
construct fictional worlds that do not correspond to the norms, rules
and laws of everyday knowledge (2005: 4)

So, for
Johnson, approaching narratives from the perspective of generic
verisimilitude means that texts are classed, for example, as science
fiction in relation to other texts, as opposed to whether their science
seems plausible in the real world. This negates ideas of science fantasy
as noted above. Johnson also makes clear that these conventions can
change over time (2005: 4). So in science fiction one would expect to
find motifs such as time travel and alien beings invading Earth, even
though the presentation of these elements will vary from text to text.
It is this generic verisimilitude which causes viewers to automatically,
what is commonly called, ‘suspend their disbelief’, and can cause
viewers to become absorbed and even lost in the narrative world. During
the ‘classic’Doctor Whoseries,
the Doctor may spout scientific gibberish but he is always convinced by
what he is saying, which follows the rules of the genre, and he is
always treated as a ‘real’ character within the narratives. Conversely,
‘socio-cultural verisimilitude’ relates to what lies in the real world.
So, as Johnson notes, ‘while some believe in alien abductions, there is
a broader cultural consensus that aliens do not visit Earth’ (2005: 4).
Johnson writes that ‘What is plausible within a science fiction
programme (and other non-verisimilitudinous genres) therefore conflicts
with accepted notions of reality’ (2005: 4). But Johnson does note that
socio-cultural verisimilitude is historically contingent since we do not
know, for instance, what space travel will look like in the twenty-third
century (2000: 4). However, Johnson also stresses that these genres do
often depend on socio-cultural verisimilitude to make their worlds
believable. Johnson writes:

when
depicting an alien landing on Earth, socio-cultural verisimilitude is
essential to make the Earth seem plausible and believable despite the
presence of an alien being. While these genres may represent fictional
worlds that challenge culturally accepted notions of “reality”, they
are also crucially engaged with explaining the rules that govern their
particular fictional world (2005: 4)

Indeed,
inDoctor Who, the
familiar - what Freud calls theHeimlich-
is often turned into the threatening (theunheimlich),
which can absorb and even lose the viewer in fiction. For example,
monsters were presented at famous landmarks in narratives of the 1960s.
In ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ (1964), ‘The Web of Fear’ (1968) and
‘The Invasion’ (1968) respectively, Daleks, invading Earth of the
future, glide over Westminster Bridge, and Yeti are presented roaming
through the dark tunnels of the London Underground, while Cybermen march
down the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the empirical present (Tulloch
and Alvarado 1983: 105). Indeed, Jon Pertwee once said that a ‘‘Yeti on
the toilet seat in Tooting Bec’ is more frightening than in its native
Himalayas’ (Tulloch and Alvarado 1983: 105). Furthermore, although not
plausible, the early 1970s, when Jon Pertwee played a Doctor exiled to
Earth, saw such horror inDoctor
Who, where the familiar was made threatening. In ‘Terror of the
Autons’ (1971), plastic phone wires and dolls, controlled by aliens, can
strangle people, and this led to complaints (Tulloch and Alvarado 1983:
158-9). The fact that some child viewers were scared by this indicates
how some members of the audience actually confused fiction and reality.

Doctor
Whoindeed mixed science
fiction with different genres and also scared and absorbed viewers
through its mixing of science fiction with the gothic, especially in the
mid-1970s when Philip Hinchcliffe was producer, when Robert Holmes was
script-editor, and when Tom Baker had taken over from Jon Pertwee in
playing the Doctor. Widely seen as beginning with Horace Walpole’s novelThe
Castle of Otranto(1764),
the gothic is primarily defined by a series of conventions (e.g. the
setting of the sinister old, often decaying, gothic house, castle, or
monastery; monstrous beings arising from tombs; characters mentally and
physically possessed; and the heroine menaced by the villain in dark
underground passages), and dealt with themes such as, in the nineteenth
century, the place of women in society, and the fear of a barbaric
gothic past but equal uncertainty about the ushering in of a new age of
science of the Enlightenment. Indeed, Mary Shelley’s gothic novelFrankenstein(1818)
has also been viewed by Brian Aldiss (2001) as the first work of science
fiction. But the blending of the science fiction and gothic genres has
an emotional effect on many readers or viewers, creating an experience
of uncertainty and terror. Because of the gothic’s emphasis on a
haunting atmosphere, it was also an appropriate genre to be mixed with
science fiction in film and television. Bignell argues that since the
novel and cinema are both narrative media, it is hardly surprising that
the visual media have adapted novels, and that these media are able to
render as though real ghosts, vampires, and transformations of the body
(2000: 115). Bignell states that ‘perhaps the source of the power of the
Gothic’ in ‘adaptations in film and TV’ is ‘the accumulation of
startling moments of’ visual ‘intense experience’ (2000: 116). For
example, cinema and television can present alien figures rising from
tombs; they can present vampires attacking human beings, sometimes, as
in the filmNosferatu(1922),
using techniques such as showing the shadow of the creature on a wall to
create a sense of horror; they can present heroines facing fears in
dark, long, subterranean passageways, a trademark of horror films; and
they can present characters physically possessed. Direction was
therefore important to the gothic and indeed to theDoctor
Whogothic in absorbing
viewers to the extent that some might have become lost in the fictional
world.

A further
point has also been raised here which is that, in the case ofDoctor
Who, in addition to performance, elements ofmise-en-scčne,
as well as incidental music, contribute to audiences becoming absorbed -
and maybe even lost - in the programme. These elements ofmise-en-scčne,
which help create other worlds or changed versions of our own, include
camera work, set design, costume design, and lighting, and in some cases
may be more effective in creating the illusion of a strange place than
in others. Audiences may therefore have been more absorbed in some
narratives than others.

Furthermore,
identification with characters has been discussed in relation to
literary texts and these ideas can be applied to the study of television
viewing andDoctor Who.
Hans Robert Jauss (1982) provides a classification of various forms of
identification between readers and characters. Jauss maps out five types
of identification. Firstly, according to Jauss, there is ‘admiring
identification’. This is where the reader identifies with an ideal
leading protagonist who is more or less invincible and/or invulnerable.
The other categories of identification which Jauss maps out in relation
to literary texts are ‘sympathetic identification’ where a more everyday
person is presented, suffering and struggling with problems with which
the reader is familiar and with which the reader can identify;
‘cathartic identification’ where the reader identifies with a character
like him or herself, but one who undergoes trials; ‘ironic
identification’ where readers are led to expect identification but where
this is ultimately denied; and ‘associative identification’, where the
difference between characters and readers is non-existent. So, for
example, in the case of soap operas, viewers may experience ‘sympathetic
identification’, and in the case ofDoctor
Who, ‘cathartic identification’ where the companion, new to the
Doctor’s world, undergoes trials, making the viewer absorbed.
Furthermore, as Bignell has noted (2007), child viewers may also desire
the Doctor’s rationality and control, at the same time as identifying
with the Daleks ‘otherness’.

‘The Mind
Robber’ reflects on this idea of becoming lost in fiction quite
explicitly. The narrative does this by taking fictionality as a theme,
in keeping with Patricia Waugh’s (1984) and Mark Currie’s (1995)
classification of a type of metafiction. It features the binaries of
hero and monster, elements from children’s fiction and classical
mythology, reworked later in a narrative like ‘The Horns of Nimon’
(1979), and the presence of the gothic genre. It can be read as
reflecting upon the way that some viewers watchDoctor
Who(and indeed
television more generally), metaphorically leaving the comfort of home
and travelling with characters into foreign spheres. The boundaries
between reality and fiction become blurred. This is achieved by the move
into a fantasy locale, since, as noted above, Suvin wrote that ‘a fairy
tale is often more at variance with the author’s empirical world than
SF’ (1979: 36-7).

‘The Mind
Robber’ does not beginin
mediasresbut
rather with the regularDoctor
Whocharacters, the
Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe, who, as per the programme’s rules, are treated
as ‘real’ within the narrative, being brought across a generic threshold
from the characters’ home ‘reality’ of normal Time and Space into an
unknown, foreign Land of Fiction populated by fictional characters in
which to believe. Unlike the rest of the narrative written by Peter
Ling, the first episode was penned by then script-editor Derrick Sherwin
since there was a practical requirement for this episode to be made on a
limited budget, but it illustrates this move. The strange white void is
a threshold to the Land of Fiction. The images of Jamie and Zoe’s homes
which appear on the TARDIS scanner are illusory. These images have been
projected there by the Master of the Land of Fiction who, as the
gatekeeper figure moving the narrative on, actually wishes to draw the
charactersawayfrom
home. Similarly, the Master, whose voice can be heard inside the
Doctor’s head, attempts to lure him from the safety of the TARDIS, his
home, into the white void, bringing regular characters through a
boundary into a space which will lead into the world of literary
characters. The Doctor’s TARDIS later literally breaks up, illustrating
the breaking up of the normal. The protagonists arrive in an environment
featuring figures and laws of fiction, conjured up by an author-like
figure who had previously been the writer of a children’s comicThe
Ensign. The rest of the narrative involves the Doctor and his
companions seeking this figure since they want to make their way back
home, mirroring Dorothy’s quest in L. Frank Baum’sThe
Wizard of Oz.

Not only
does the narrative concern the imagination of the writer figure brought
from ‘reality’, but it also deals with the effect of fiction on the
imagination of reader figures also from ‘reality’. Not only is the theme
of imprisonment present where the Master of the land is bound to a
computer, but the theme of imprisonment is also apparent where the
regular characters, readers of this world, must ensure that they are not
imprisoned by their imaginations and belief in fictions. The land is a
Land of Fiction for which the library inside the Master’s citadel stands
as a symbol. The forest tree tops are literally shaped as letters
arranged to form words, with trees growing not on soil but standing on a
smooth white floor, and characters from fictions roaming around,
including toy soldiers of the type found in Peter Ilystch Tchaikovsky’s
fantasy balletThe
Nutcracker Suite(1892),
based on a narrative by E. T. A. Hoffmann. These figures are placed as
traps for the Doctor and his companions to believe in. These characters
from children’s literature come to life in front of the Doctor and his
companions, and, as noted above, in a case (that of Lemuel Gulliver)
speak the words from the original texts. Elements of other genres seep
in such as the gothic lair of the Minotaur, as well as the Medusa. This
is a land where anything is possible: at one stage, picture writing of
the type found in the children’s bookMother
Gooseinforms the Doctor
that Jamie is ‘safe and well’ with a wishing well like that in the 1937
Walt Disney filmSnow
White and the Seven Dwarfsbeing
present, to which the Doctor voices the paradox ‘I wish I believed in
wishing wells’. When the Doctor and his companions believe in what they
see, they actually become fiction, such as cardboard cut-outs like
Jamie, whose face must be put back together using puzzle pieces. But
when they refuse to believe in the fictional narratives, the figures,
like the unicorn from Jamie’s dream and thus imagination (which features
in the children’s nursery rhymeThe
Lion and the Unicorn), become frozen works of artifice.

This
landscape has been created out of the Master’s mind, hence the title
‘The Mind Robber’. Therefore, not only is the Master of the Land of
Fiction (like the Wizard in Baum’sThe
Wizard Of Oz) a controlled character, with vocal characteristics of
a friendly old gentleman, who has been brought to this sphere, but also
an author-like figure, with mechanical vocal characteristics, who
engineers situations. But the Doctor and his companions are both
characters and readers. As noted earlier, the Doctor ultimately becomes
author-like taking control of the situation and engineering events, as
opposed to believing in the fictional characters in the sphere. This
suggests that one must control, rather than be controlled, by fictional
narratives. The television viewer like the Doctor’s companions must take
heed of the Doctor’s instruction of the need to hang onto reality.
However, although the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are treated as ‘real’
within the narrative there are winks to the television viewer that they
too are fictional characters withinDoctor
Who: when the Doctor incorrectly puts Jamie’s face back together, a
new actor Hamish Wilson plays Jamie for an episode and a half (out of
necessity as Frazer Hines had come down with chicken-pox), and the
Master of the land later says of Jamie and Zoe, ‘They’re just fictional
characters’, which is, of course, true. But the notion of needing to
hang onto reality is expressed and the Land of Fiction is a very general
title: it reflects on many fictions includingDoctor
Who.

On the
one hand, then, ‘The Mind Robber’, from the programme’s sixth season,
may appear to be a very unrepresentative example ofDoctor
Who, which was even more bizarre than other metafictions like
‘Carnival of Monsters’ (1973). In a chapter appropriately titled ‘Far
Out’ in his bookDoctor
Who – From A to Z, Gary Gillatt, for example, states that ‘The Mind
Robber’ is ‘an out-and-out fantasy’ and ‘something of a break from the
norm for the Patrick Troughton years’ (1988: 41) which centred around
monsters. Such ‘bizarre’ narratives, as ‘The Mind Robber’, are, for
Gillatt, ‘a delight’ (1998: 45). Gillatt is here echoing other views of
the narrative by fans such as Wayne (undated), and Howe and Walker, who
note that ‘Doctor Who, with its highly flexible format, was able
from time to time to present a story that could be considered
“experimental”’ and that ‘The Mind Robberis
a good example of this’ (1998: 157). Audience reaction to ‘The Mind
Robber’ at the time, however, was less than satisfactory, but with this
also indicating its departure from the usual type ofDoctor
Whonarrative of the day.
The BBC’s Audience Research Report states of episode one that ‘It seemed
that this episode only served to confirm the growing feeling that the
element of fantasy inDoctor
Whowas getting out of
hand’ (Howe and Walker 1998: 158). For many adults watching with
children,Doctor Who‘had
now deteriorated into ridiculous rubbish which could no longer be
dignified with the term science-fiction’ (Howe and Walker 1998: 158).
Just under a third of the sample were reported to have considered the
narrative ‘an enjoyable fantasy’ (Howe and Walker 1998: 158). Although
‘The Mind Robber’s scenario is ultimately explained and placed within
the domain of science-fiction, Gillatt and Howe and Walker group ‘The
Mind Robber’ with earlier experimentalDoctor
Whonarratives starring
William Hartnell: ‘Inside the Spaceship’ (1964), only the programme’s
third narrative, and ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ (1966) respectively.
However, while ‘The Mind Robber’isquite
clearly experimental, it is also a postmodernist narrative reflecting
playfully on the way in which we may read or watch fiction includingDoctor
Who, and as it displays this awareness it can be seen as
representative of a whole body of fiction. This article has explored the
way in which viewers may have become absorbed and even lost in the
‘classic’Doctor Whoseries.
Were we to look at this idea in relation to the BBC WalesDoctor
Who(2005-), we would
have to consider issues such as the way some episodes beginin
medias res, thrusting viewers into the action, and the way in which
Murray Gold’s music is even more pronounced, absorbing the audience
emotionally in a sometimes melodramatic series, and maybe losing them in
fiction.

Bibliography

Aldiss, Brian
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Bignell,
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